


Poetry and Prose

by bioticbootyshaker



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 06:57:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3841417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioticbootyshaker/pseuds/bioticbootyshaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a lifetime of being told what he's worth, Zevran finally decides for himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poetry and Prose

Everyone thought they knew him.

They thought that he had no substance, that because he flirted and joked and kept an irreverent air about him, that he was nothing more than a jester. Zevran usually never sought to change anyone’s opinion of him; it was easier, usually, that they believed he was some suave and seductive Casanova and leave him to his own devices than it was to make them understand that his boasting and his bragging was only a show. 

Sex was... nice enough, he supposed. Honestly, it didn’t interest him at all. His time growing up as a Crow had turned sex into a commodity, something that had been used to gain trust and get himself closer to his intended target, but not something that he really took much pleasure in. Given his bawdy talk, it was easy to see why everyone thought he had slept with half of Thedas; but talk was talk, and his flesh burned more when he was held and kissed and touched than when he was fucked. 

He didn’t expect anyone to understand. Most of the time _he_ didn’t even understand himself. But that was the nature of an assassin, he supposed. They were a complicated, mysterious lot. 

Until he met Varric, he hadn’t known there was anyone else like him. He’d spent his entire life feeling isolated, feeling like something must be wrong with him if he could speak of sex and passion so easily and yet feel no stirring in his stomach or his loins when the prospect of sex presented itself. Until he met Varric, he had believed he must be alone in the world, some defect that had no real place in the world. 

But Varric wrote of passionate love affairs and torrid liaisons with ease, yet experienced no stirrings of his own. He penned stories of desire and want and lust, and laughed over them with Zevran as they drank together in the Hanged Man and leaned back together in Varric’s overstuffed chair. 

It made Zevran feel... safe. 

Safety was something he’d never known. As a Crow, safety didn’t exist. He’d been trained to never relax, to never feel that he had any place where he could rest and relax and know comfort. And so, to sit there with Varric, to listen to him talk about things with such ease that Zevran had struggled his entire life to put into words... 

“Ah, when I was small they told me that I was only good for two things,” Zevran said. “Fucking and killing. And I believed them. I believed that I had no worth beyond what I could do with my body and my blades.”

“That’s the problem with people deciding shit for you,” Varric said. “They don’t _know_ you. Shit, I don’t know you. Not really. You know you, though. At least you should.”

What Zevran knew was that he’d been lied to. He’d been treated poorly, by everyone, and no one had ever taken him aside and told him that if he only wanted to sit there with someone, to be close to them without their clothes being removed and the fuel of sex making everything much more complicated than it needed to be. What he knew was that he wasn’t broken and he wasn’t wrong and he wasn’t defective. 

He was more than some object to be desired. He was more than his skin and his blood and his bones and his daggers. 

Zevran chuckled, shifting in the chair to turn a bit towards him. He leaned in and touched his lips to Varric’s temple, closing his eyes and enjoying the feeling of being safe and secure and valued beyond what he could do and how he could satisfy someone else. His fingers did not itch for the hilt of his dagger, his stomach didn’t tighten at the thought of being touched. He was only there with Varric, closer to him than he’d ever been to someone that had taken off his clothes and sunk into his body. 

“I know that you are a very handsome dwarf,” Zevran flirted, nuzzling his nose against Varric’s cheek. His skin heated under him, and Zevran laughed, wrapping his arms around Varric and letting his nose continue to nuzzle at his throat. 

“And you’re a very drunk elf,” Varric said, but his hand was at Zevran’s waist, and his fingers gripped his shirt tightly when Zevran pressed a kiss to his jaw. 

“Mm, indeed,” Zevran agreed. “You know what I need?”

“I can only begin to guess,” Varric said. 

Zevran rested his head on Varric’s shoulder, slowly closing his eyes and letting the comfort and the safety and the peace become familiar to him, as comfortable and cozy as old friends. 

“Tell me a story, Master Tethras,” Zevran said, smiling when Varric laughed. 

“Okay, but the first yawn or eyeroll and I’m done,” Varric said. “I don’t take well to criticism.”

Zevran listened as Varric told him of dragons and gold and adventures through the snow and sand and rain and blistering heat. He listened to the tale of a man who did great deeds and forged great friendships and knew himself to be a man of strong heart and deep reserves of bravery. 

He listened to the tale of a man who knew himself and what he wanted and what he needed. Who was more than what he could do for others; who was more than the world had told him he was. 

And he smiled from the safety of Varric’s shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for lovesquiddie on tumblr!
> 
> I love ace!Zev, and I was so excited to work on this and kind of take a different approach to how I usually write Zev's interactions with people.


End file.
